


kiddo, i thought you outgrew superstition

by inkandcayenne



Category: Halloween - Fandom, True Detective
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:10:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2518691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandcayenne/pseuds/inkandcayenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rust and Marty vs. Michael Myers.  For the True Detective Halloween Challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kiddo, i thought you outgrew superstition

The call comes from an old police academy buddy of Gilbough’s, now working homicide up north.  A decades-old, heretofore unsolvable serial case with supernatural overtones--“from what I hear, this sort of thing is right in your wheelhouse.”  Haddonfield PD will pay airfare and hotel if they’ll come up for the weekend as consultants.  Rust just grunts noncommittally.

“I don’t know why you’re dragging your feet on this,” Marty says.  “Change of scenery could be nice.  Hotel’s got a waffle bar, too.”

“It’s in Illinois.”

“You got something against Illinois?  Did the entire state just somehow manage to get under your skin, like televangelists and low-carb beer and them little stick figure families on cars?”

“Marty, when I moved back down South thirty-two years ago, I promised myself two things.”  Rust stubs his cigarette out in a Hart and Cohle Investigative Solutions mug emphatically.  “And one of ‘em was that I’d never put up with anything colder than fifty degrees ever again.  It is--” he reaches over to the aging desktop computer and taps a few keys--“currently forty-three degrees in Chicago.”

Marty leans back in his chair.  “What was the other thing?”

“Hmmm?”

“That you promised yourself.”

“No more bear.”

“Bear?”

“Every fucking day for two months straight back in the winter of ‘78.  Never again.”  Rust reaches across the desk and pointedly picks up the file from the case down in Port Eads, about as far south as you can get without ending up somewhere in the Gulf.  

“Well, I don’t think they eat a lot of bear in Illinois,” Marty replies, “and as for your other concern, we’ll buy you a fucking sweater.”

It’s forty-two degrees when they land at O’Hare, and the wind’s blowing hard enough that Rust can’t get his cigarette lit.  He just glares at Marty.  

\---

The place in question is only a couple of blocks from the old townhouse that serves as a local hotel, so they elect to walk.  It’s overcast, brisk rather than cold, and quiet--quieter than it should be, for a holiday afternoon an hour before sunset.  There’s a jack-o-lantern on every porch, already lit, as if warding off some unspoken-of danger, and a clutch of costumed children too far up the sidewalk to be heard.  The leaves that blow up and down the street in the autumn breeze look a little too perfect, as if they were cut out of paper and carefully placed by an unseen hand.  

“I don’t like this place,” Marty says.

Rust blinks.  “That’s my line.”

“Yeah, you don’t like places because everything grows in the wrong direction or ‘cause there’s some scented meat or some other weirdo shit.  This is different.  This is--the opposite.”

“Every white picket in its place,” Rust intones.  “Every blade of grass perfectly mowed.  Reminds me of when I first moved back down south.  Growing up in the bush, accustomed to wildness, to uncontrolled creation and destruction.  I’d never seen suburbia.  It seemed to me like somethin’ grown in a terrarium.”

“Normally this is where I’d tell you to shut the fuck up,” Marty says, “but I’m getting that vibe too.  Things around here ain’t right.”

“It’s _HIM_ ,” a voice says behind them.

They both like to jump out of their skins; Marty feels his hand move, completely of its own volition, to the gun at his hip, before he recognizes the old guy from the newspaper photos Haddonfield PD had sent.  “Dr. Loomis.  You gave us a fright.”

Rust’s eyes are wide and he’s backed up half a step.  “What’s who? Who’s _him_?”

“I’m Martin Hart from Hart and Cohle Investigative Services."  He always announces the name with a prideful glee that he knows Rust finds obnoxious, but he can't help it.  "We spoke on the phone.  This is Rustin--”

“It’s _THE EVIL_.  It’s _returned_ ,” Loomis replies, his voice growing more sonorous and excitable with every word.

“Rust, this is Dr. Sam L--”

“What the fuck kind of fuckin’ freak show is this?” Rust growls around his cigarette, shielding his lighter’s flame with his hand.  “I didn’t come here for some kinda overwrought small-town paranoiac bullshit.”

“But apparently I’m the only person here civilized enough to believe in _introductions_ ,” Marty says, feeling as if he's talking to himself.  “Jesus fucking Christ, as if putting up with one weirdo wasn’t enough.”  

“I”m sorry you came here,” Loomis says, his eyes wide and forlorn. “I fear there’s nothing that can be done.  You see, _he can’t be stopped_.”

“Yeah, well,” Marty says, “last guy that thought that, Rust here shot him in the head.”  He peers at the address saved on his phone and looks up at where they’ve stopped, in front of an unassuming white two-story faded to gray.  “This is it, yeah?  Looks regular enough.  A little run-down.”

“You think he hasn’t been shot?  He’s been shot!  Set on fire!  Hit with a car!  Electrocuted!   _Decapitated_!  It does no good.  He’s not human.  He is only pure evil!”

“Evil,” Rust says tersely, “is fairy tale that people invented to absolve themselves of responsibility for the world we’ve all created.  No one is really evil--” he’s beginning to gesture wildly at this point, which Marty takes as a sign that he’s just getting warmed up--”meaning no one is truly innocent, either.  All these _rules_ , man, good, evil, it’s just the script of a play that you made up in your mind, and you keep goin’ through the motions, sayin’ your lines. But _there’s no audience_.”  He takes one last hard drag, cheeks hollowing, and pitches his cigarette into the bushes.  

It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense to Marty, but he gave up trying to parse Rust some dozen years back.  Loomis looks aghast, and both of them turn to Marty expectantly, as if looking for backup.  “I think you’re both a couple of fuckin’ psychos,” he says finally, and walks into the house.

\-----

Rust loads another clip into his gun.  And to think he’d almost left half his ammo back at the hotel, thinking there was no way he’d need this much.  “This is some _bullshit_ , Marty,” he whispers harshly, peering around the banister.  

Marty doubles over, trying to catch his breath.  “Not happening.  This is.  Not happening.”

“I _told_ you,” Loomis declares in doomful tones, “he can’t be--”

“ _Shut up_ ,” they reply in unison.  

“Maybe he’s wearing a bullet-proof vest or somethin’.”  Rust looks more rattled than Marty’s ever seen him.

“What, on his arms?  And his legs?  And his _head_?”

“Maybe I missed.”

“And here I thought you had a special skill for blowin’ motherfuckers’ brains out under duress.”

“First time for everything.”

They hear the shuffling downstairs again and crouch behind the banister.  A few thumping, wooden steps and the shape comes into view.  It’s smaller than Childress was, but not by much.  It lacks that dense, vibrating madness that Childress carried with him, though; it’s empty, hollow, like everything human has been scraped out.  There’s no Yellow King for this shape, no vision, no strategy.  Only raw violence.  

“All right,” Rust whispers.  “We need another plan.”

“What you thinkin’?”

“There’s nothing you can do.  The _EVIL_ \--”

“SHUT. UP.”  Marty turns back to Rust.  “If fillin’ him full of bullet holes don’t work, what will?”

There’s a long pause.  “I got an idea,” Rust finally says.  He gets to his feet quietly and, before Marty can stop him, he’s scurried down the back steps.  

“Rust!  Get back here and quit it with that stupid ninja bullshit!” he hisses, but he’s already gone and Marty can hear him making a racket in the kitchen.  The hulking figure in the foyer turns and makes his way towards the noise.  “Fuck,” Marty groans and makes for the stairs.  “If that sonofabitch gets himself gutted again--”  

Gunshots.  One, two, three, four.  

“Rust?”

An almost unbearable silence, and then-- “Here,” he calls.  

Marty draws his gun--though he’s not sure why, it’s proven pretty unhelpful thus far, but it makes him feel useful--and approaches the kitchen door cautiously.  There’s a series of hollow thuds, two or three guttural croaks, and what sounds like a small explosion.  He calls his partner’s name again.

 _Thud_. “You wanna stay outta here, Marty.”   _Screech_.

“You okay?”

 _Bang. Splat._  “Fine.”

 _Tha-CHUNK._  “I’m comin’ in.”

“All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Michael Myers is next to the stove.  The majority of him is, anyway.  Parts of him are on the kitchen table, though, and there seems to be a sizeable chunk in the sink.  Rust is standing in the middle of the room with a steak knife in one hand and what appears to be a garlic press in the other.  “May not wanna step in here,” he says.  “Bit messy.”  He’s got a surprisingly moderate amount of blood, all things considered, spattered across the new sweater.  Loomis appears behind Marty, takes one look at the kitchen, and then runs out the front door to be quietly sick in the bushes.

“What exactly did you _do_?” Marty asks.

Rust lights a cigarette.  “Just somethin’ I picked up from a dope runner in Guadalajara,” he says.  “Trick is, first all the limbs gotta be--”

Marty holds up a hand.  “I don’t need to know, man.  I got faith in your process.”

“Yeah, well.”  Rust takes a long, satisfied drag.  “Figure he ain’t walkin’ away from this one.”


End file.
